city can tell where it is. Many changes have taken place there since my
childhood. When I was a small boy it was called the _town_,--now we
never hear of it but as the _city_ of Boston. Its population has
increased rapidly; its territory has been extended; it has grown in
wealth, in splendor, in its means for mental and moral improvement; in
the number and convenience of its public schools,--the pride and
ornament, or the disgrace, of any place. Yes, Boston is not, in
appearance or in fact, what it once was.

But I am getting off from my story. I was saying that my young friend
resided on the "new-land"--no; the "Mill-Pond;"--well, it's all the
same--for when they dug down old Beacon Hill, they threw the dirt into
the Mill-Pond, and when it was filled up, or made land, the spot was
still known as the Mill-Pond, and oftentimes was called the new-land. In
later years, there have been other portions added to the city, by making
wharves, and filling up where the tide used to ebb and flow, and where
large vessels could float.

But again I am digressing too far from the story.

So soon as my friend was old enough, he was sent to one of the primary
schools, and was a pretty constant scholar at that, and afterwards at a
grammar school, till he was about twelve years old. He was, of course,
much with other lads of his own age, and some who were older and
younger than himself. He was, also, often in the streets, and as there
were a great many people who used profane language in those days,--as
there are at the present time,--he heard much of it; yet he had been so
carefully trained that he did not for years utter wicked words.

It is always painful to most persons, old as well as young, to hear